Such Is Life Part 61

About mid-day--having crossed the main track diagonally, without seeing it-- I came upon the portable engine and centrifugal pump belonging to Runnymede, set up for work at Patagonia Tank.

On a well-managed station, like Runnymede, a tank is, whenever possible, excavated on the margin of a swamp. The clay extracted is formed into a strong wall, or enclosing embankment, a couple of yards back from the edge of the excavation; and under this wall, an iron pipe connects the swamp with the tank. The swamp being full, and the water in the tank having reached the same level, the outer end of the pipe is closed, and the portable pumping plant sent out to fill the s.p.a.ce inside the wall, thus doubling the capacity of the tank.

Three days before the time I speak of, a thunderstorm of a few miles' area had filled the Patagonia Swamp; and Montgomery, dreading a rainless winter, had seized the opportunity to secure a supply of water. The pumping plant had been set-up on the evening before, but not started; and now the wind had swept all the water to the other end of the swamp. The engine-driver and his mate had struck their tent to prevent its being blown away, and were lying in the lee of the tank wall, trying to get a smoke.

Young Mooney had come early from the station, to see how the pump started, and had been drawn into a controversy with his half-broken colt; the point in dispute being whether it was safe to go within forty yards of the engine.

Mooney had maintained the affirmative, and the colt, the negative.

The Pure Logic which the colt had opposed to Mooney's Applied Logic had ultimately prevailed, and the narangy had withdrawn from the argument on his ear, whilst the colt had disappeared through the rising dust-storm.

Now Mooney was sitting in the lee of the embankment, cursing the day he elected to be a squatter rather than a clergyman.

I watered my horses and Pup at the tank, condoled with Mooney, joined the two other chaps in severe criticism on the weather, replenished my water-bag, and pa.s.sed on. I may add that the pump was n't started on that occasion at all; the water being blown clean out of the swamp, and scattered, fine as dust, through the thirsty atmosphere.

The steady intensity of the shower augmented as I went on. It got under my hat, and the next moment that product of German industry was flying across the wilderness, for the good of trade. At last I had to give-in.

The increasing broadside pressure, with the sand and dust, was becoming too much for the horses; and, in any case, I should have had to stop on Pup's account. I turned Cleopatra's head to leeward, and began carefully to dismount. But the wind ballooned the back of my coat and the right branch of my other garment, and I went three yards through the air, like a bird shot on the wing. Recovering foothold, I fought my way to Bunyip, and relieved him of his pack. Then, with Cleopatra's rein over my arm, I sat down on the ground to see it out. At this low elevation, the air was thick with skipping crumbs of hard dirt, which rattled on my skull like hail; in fact, everything not anch.o.r.ed to the ground was at racing speed, and all in the same direction.

But this strong, thirsty wind, coming from the north-western deserts with a clear fetch of a thousand miles, was not going to last many hours; meantime, I set myself to work out scientifically its genesis, operation, and hidden purpose. The first and second considerations were merely matters of research and calculation; the third was largely speculative, admitting of no more definite conclusion than that the time had come when hygienic necessities required a thorough rousing and ridding-out of microbes, bacteria, and other pests too minute to be worth particularising. But I was better enlightened before another day had gone over my head.

Whilst engaged in these not unpleasing studies, I caught a momentary glimpse of something, ten yards away to the left, which seemed to be moving slowly against the wind. The volume of flying dust was, of course, far from uniform in density; and presently I caught sight of the object again. It was a man, creeping slowly and painfully across the stubbly k.n.o.bs of cotton-bush on his hands and knees. I hailed him in a voice that took the skin off my throat, but another glimpse showed him still travelling; his head bent almost to the ground. I rose carefully to my feet, facing the shower, but only to be hurled down on top of the faithful Pup, and savagely snapped at.

Then I went like a quadruped till I reached the wayfarer, and caught him by the ankle. He looked round; I beckoned, and crept back to my former seat, whilst he followed close behind. Then a bearded, haggard, resolute face, framed by an old hat tied down over the ears, confronted me.

"You look like some worn and weary brother, pulling hard against the stream,"

I shouted.

The dry, cracked lips moved without speech, and the bloodshot eyes left my face to scan the pack-saddle beside me.

"Water?" I suggested.

He nodded. Cleopatra was close behind me, propped against the wind.

I drew myself up by the near stirrup, till I could unbuckle the water-bag from the cantle. Though filled with half a gallon of water not two hours before, it was now half-empty. I drew the cork; my visitor clasped the cool, damp canvas between his trembling hands, and, with fine self-control, barely wetted his lips again and again. At last he took a moderate drink.

"Making for Patagonia Tank," he hoa.r.s.ely remarked.

"You were going past it. It 's about a mile and a half straight across there.

I've just come from it."

"Disappointed of water last night," he continued. "It was dark when I struck the little tank I was making for, and I found her dry; and my throat like a lime-kiln. Too dog-tired to go any further, so I rested till morning, and then struck for the Patagonia, with a devil of a headache to help me along.

I knew of another tank nearer, but I would n't trust myself to find her in the dust. I helped to sink the Patagonia. Fine tank--ain't she?"

"First-cla.s.s. Have you no swag?"

"I had a very good one a few hours ago, but Lord knows where she is now.

I left her behind when the wind put me on all-fours. Kept pretty well in the same quarter, I think?"

"About the same."

"That'll be a bit of a guide. You'll be staying here till she slackens-down?'

"There's nothing else I can do."

"Well, I'll stay with you. If you shoot me straight for the swamp I'll be right. I'll spell to-night at the tank, and then have a try for my swag."

"You'll find two very decent coves camped at the tank, with the engine and pump. They'll put you on your feet."

"Good again."

"Which way are you travelling?" I asked.

"Any way. Work's scarce; contractors camped for want of water; too late for burr-cutting; nothing doing. I wish to G.o.d the rabbits would come something worth while."

And so the profitless conversation (conversation is generally profitless) went on by fits and starts, till the sand and dirt-pellets ceased to drift.

Half-an-hour later, it was an almost perfect calm, though the air was still charged with dust.

By this time, I had re-packed, and was ready to start. My guest was now on his feet, but shaky enough. With Bligh-like impartiality, I meted out half a pint of water to him, the same quant.i.ty to Pup, and the remaining quarter-pint to myself.

"Got a bit of tobacco to spare?" he asked. "Mine's all in my swag."

"Certainly," I replied. "Are you hard-up? Because I can lend you five bob till we meet again."

"No, thank-you. I 've got a couple or three notes left, and even if I hadn't, I'd think twice before I touched your money. Money's a peculiar thing."

"Especially in the sense of being peculiar to certain sections of society,"

I replied. "Now strike straight across there, and you'll fetch the tank in a mile and a half."

"What's your name?" he demanded, as I placed my foot in the stirrup.

"Collins."

"Well, so-long!"

"So-long."

My horses went off freely. I struck the wicket-gate with accuracy and bowled on toward the declining sun, which showed dull and coppery through suspended dust; till, just at that hour which calls the faithful Mussulman to prayer, and the no less faithful sundowner to the station store, I reached my destination.

One glance was enough. Two strange horses were in the paddock; the kerosene-tins still stood in the sheltered angle by the chimney, but the flowers were dead; the smooth-trodden radius round the door was no longer swept except by the winds of heaven, and was becoming a midden whence antiquaries of future ages might sift out priceless relics with unp.r.o.nounceable names. A strange dog came to the door-step, gave a single bark, and re-entered; then Jack the Sh.e.l.lback appeared, and, recognising me, got a larger quant.i.ty of profanity and indecency into his cordial welcome than you might think possible. Scarce as water was, he cursed me into washing the sand out of my hair with two consecutive goes of the precious liquid, whilst he swore the saddles of my horses, and obscene-languaged some supper for me. Even before the shower, the whole area of my mortal shrine, back from high-water mark round neck and wrists, had been pistol-proof with a thousand samples of dust, patiently collected over the same number of miles; but that did n't trouble me.

I could get rid of it--along with much moral and mental virtue, unfortunately--possibly at the Runnymede swimming-hole, or failing that, at the place where the Lachlan had been.

"Stiff little breeze we had," I remarked, as I sat down to supper.

"Well, no," replied Jack, in reluctant and compa.s.sionate negative; and this was the only part of his long reply fit to place before the sanctimonious reader. He went on to tell me, in the vulgar tongue, that if I had ever been at sea, I would think nothing of a whiff like that.

He told me of storms he had weathered--particularly, one off Christiana c.o.o.ner, a solitary island in the south Atlantic--and the effect of his discourse is that I have ever since been careful, in the company of sailors, to avoid speaking of the winds I have encountered.

"I'll fix you up for a hat," he continued, in language of matchless force and piquancy. "Bend her; she'll about fit you. I dropped across her one day I was in the road-paddock."

'She' was a drab belltopper, in perfect preservation, with a crown nothing less than a foot and a half high, and a narrow, wavy brim.

She proved a perfect fit when I 'bent' her. I wore her afterward for many a week, till one night she rolled away from my camp, and I saw her no more, though I sought her diligently. Take her for all in all, I shall not look upon her like again.

"Now, if you'd a pair o' skylights athort your cut.w.a.ter, you'd be set up for a professor of phrenology, or doxology, or any other ology,"

suggested Jack, with one oath, two unseemly expletives, and two obscenities.